Pain has a purpose?

WHAT???  That's what I said when I read that.  I am part of a Food and Feelings group on Yahoo and Karen Koenig runs the group.  Today this is the wisdom she wanted to impart.  Here is exactly what she said:

We all go through what therapist and author Thomas Moore calls "dark nights of the soul." In fact that is the title of his book about how to use the ordeals in our lives to grow, change and flourish. As soon as I finish it, I will blog a review of it, which should be within a week. At any rate, I totally agree with Moore that in many, perhaps most, cases what he calls "ordeals" are teaching lessons if we don't run away from them. In our culture, people tend to run from emotional pain and discomfort and therefore only add more to their lives. If you start with the premise that pleasure and pain have equal value in life, then you take whatever comes your way. Whether you're trying to figure out what to do with a marriage, thinking about changing careers, anticipating retirement, or dealing with a major illness, experience your feelings and they will give you a direction. If you are unwilling to do that, you'll stay stuck emotionally. We are not meant not to be unhappy. Please, all of you, read that sentence again. The goal of life is not to be happy or successful. The goal is to experience fully what life has to offer, period, end of story. As Geneen Roth so wisely says, "The only way out is through."

Pain and pleasure have equal value?  The goal of life is not to be happy or successful?  I mean, reading it now just makes me want to laugh!  Isn't our society built on the idea that we are supposed to be happy?  Well, it just really hit me and it was so timely for what I have been going through.  I realized that the pain of late has a purpose and both my son and I are meant to learn from it.

I was forced to endure it (I can't quit my job today!) but after moving through the pain I realized how much we both have learned from this experience.  We both learned that pain subsides after a while and eventually goes away.  We both learned that we can  handle difficult situations and get through it one minute at a time.  I learned that I have lots of resources and people who love me that I can talk to when I need them.  And I realized that the bean is going to be okay.  He is in great care with people who will love him.  Today I dropped him off at his new daycare and there were no tears.

I was proud of both of us today :)